Jan. 2: Watching Paul Adams dressed in a three-piece suit and working his ways through emails on his blackberry can be a little unnerving. You expect the cheerful 33-year-old to bowl, throw his limbs around like a tarantula, and float a googly to the batsmen, his face looking up at the sky.
But he didn’t script his cricketing life, and those who did, didn’t do a very great job. He made his debut as an 18-year-old chinaman bowler in 1995-96, having completed the journey from school cricket to a first-class and to the international circuit in just eight heady months.
He was the youngest non-white cricketer to ever play for South Africa, and was hailed as cricket administrators’ answer to the politicians who questioned the transformation policy of having four non-white cricketers in every playing XI. “At that stage I didn’t know what was happening. I was still a teenager, but administrators said I was a hero for the non-whites and blacks who did not have a proper education. They said I had fought the odds to emerge from terrible poverty,” he says.
“I guess they loved their cliched labels. The only problem was I had come from a non-racial school in Cape Town — a big co-ed facility in what is a spacious tree-lined suburb with its plus-200 year-old history, not a ramshackle shantytown wreck from the apartheid era.”
Adams, known as Gogga to his mates, had a great half-a-year of international cricket — one that even bettered Aussie spin legend Shane Warne. That was a time when nobody could read his action and as a result he took a bucketful of wickets.
More labels came after it. “Someone called me a frog in a blender, another said my bowling action like I was stealing hub caps off moving cars at a tiem when I was 19 and had taken a lot of wickets on South Africa’s tour to England.
“Ironically I had come to know of the term chinaman and googly only two years ago. When I played backyard cricket with my brother I used to call them in-spinners and out-spinners.”
However, once the batsmen got used to his weird bowling action, he started getting smashed around. By 2003, six years after his first international appearance, his career was on its last legs. “I guess I was pushed into international cricket too quickly. I never had the chance to develop variations to my bowling. Also when Hansie Cronje was captain, he bowled me in short bursts, but after him, captains used me to curtail runs, which I was never very good at.”
By the time he was 30, Adams had already retired, snubbed by his domestic side as well. Irregular commentary stints have kept him close to the game, but he admits life away from cricket could have been more productive. “People say ‘why didn’t you go to England to play county cricket?’. But nobody really invited me. I had to put food on the table for my wife and kids, and this was the easiest way,” he adds. “I’ve also completed my Level-III coaching course, and now coach the kids here at Newlands. Other former cricketers have gone on from this job to coach South Africa — Eric Simons and Vincent Barnes.
“Cricket South Africa need a coach so I might apply. But if they do take me I’ll be younger than the players,” he adds with a smile.